Only cheaper ‘green’ fuels will force changes in energy use

Despite intense climate worries, electorates have been unwilling to spend the trillions needed to cut emissions dramatically. That is why climate campaigners have increasingly pursued a new strategy: forcing climate policy through courts. Across the world, the UN now counts at least 1,550 such climate cases in 38 countries and more than a thousand just in the U.S., often filed by young people invoking a fear for their future. Unfortunately, such cases undermine democracy, harm the poor and sidetrack us from smarter ways to fix the climate.

Joe Biden's climate alarm is poorly founded.

Take hurricanes. Last year, you undoubtedly heard that climate change made hurricanes “record-setting.” Actually, 2020 was above average in the North Atlantic partly because of the natural La Niña phenomenon, and only record-setting in that satellites could spot more storms.

On the sidelines of the 2015 Paris climate summit, then-UK prime minister David Cameron and 19 other world leaders made a promise to double green energy research and development by 2020.

The United Kingdom is on course to break that promise. As a percentage of GDP, spending on low-carbon energy R&D has stayed sluggishly around 0.02 per cent since 2015, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).